


Hangover

by ArtisticRainey



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, flashfic, promt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 01:39:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14558061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtisticRainey/pseuds/ArtisticRainey
Summary: Requested by sugar-fiend on Tumblr. Scott experiences a hangover, but not the kind you expect.





	Hangover

Hangover. It’s usually associated with too much booze, a description of the suffering of the day after the night before. If only it was that simple, Scott thinks. If only it was that painless.

What he’s experiencing as he sits at his dad’s desk in the darkness, staring at the empty air where schematics and telemetry hover during a mission, is a hangover. But it’s much worse than a mere alcohol overdose.

This is unadulterated pain. This is a failed rescue hangover.

With a liquor hangover, it’s only a matter of time. Eventually, with enough water and feeling sorry for oneself, the pain will ease. Then afterward will be the post mortem of what happened, the laughter of remembrance at the fact you accidentally spilled a biker’s drink, but avoided being punched by starting a conga. The fact that you’re now planning another night out with the biker because he shared your enthusiasm for all things home baking. And the inevitable puzzling over where the hell that traffic cone came from.

This is not that.

This is torture.

Scott brings the holographic recordings of the rescue back up. The cold blue of the holgrams spreads across the dark lounge like rot. He manipulates the data that recreates their work, the computer memory of a Very Bad Day. He goes over and over and over it all, until his eyes are raw and his fingers tremble too much to twist the holograms any more.

They saved sixteen. But they lost three. To Scott, that is unacceptable. He runs continual  simulations, trying to figure out the one in a million chance they could have saved those people. They were parents. Siblings. Sons and daughters. They were just as important as the sixteen who made it out of the mine alive. But International Rescue let them down.

No-one else would put it that way, but to Scott, that’s what it is. Even when he’s run out of ideas and the truth is bearing down on him - they couldn’t have saved everyone in any circumstance - Scott’s head still pounds and his stomach churns.

If this was a booze hangover, he’d know that eventually it would be over. But it’s not. It’s a failure hangover. And it hangs over forever.


End file.
